Student 1

This programme used a mix of drawing from secondary sources and collage as its starting point, a popular approach in 2018. Some students also explored ecological issues as an additional motivation for their work. This combination of opportunities for engagement appears to have helped students with a range of levels of ability connect with and have success in the programme.

The programme provided students with opportunities to express their understanding of pictorial space, colour palette, narrative, and a range of approaches to using both wet and dry media. In most cases, students in this programme selected a particular colour palette and motif (often an animal) as unifying elements for the submission.

For the submission pictured, the candidate has shown they are able to layer tone in wet media, along with handling scale in foreground / background relationships to create a sense of depth. They have identified paint stippling as a successful blending approach for them, and have continued with this impressionist style, providing sufficient evidence at the curriculum level. The yellow and orange colour palette and duck and spider motifs have been effective in unifying the body of work.

This submission sits at the very bottom of the Achievement grade range. To sit more comfortably in the Achievement range, this candidate would need to have shown better understanding of the conventions of collage and application of media. Many of the works appear to be unfinished, and a greater sense of completion of these would also have assisted in placing the submission higher in the grade range.

Student 2

This programme provided students with opportunities to learn across a range of media (photography, painting, printmaking, drawing) before developing work using the conventions of design. It may represent a design-focused option within the school, while other students take a painting-based class. The selection of media initially explored provided a broad range of options for the students to use in their later works, although all folios submitted for verification used the photographs as their primary image source.

Contextualising the design brief within the music industry provided opportunities for a wide range of visual styles and engagement for students, particularly when combined with the potential for (presumably) the student to star within their own work. However, the school may wish to consider whether designing a CD case remains a relevant outcome.

This particular submission is placed at the very top of the Achievement grade range. Using a greater range of viewpoints in the original source photography to provide more options for development, exploring additional conventions of typography in relation to text hierarchy and contemporary established practice for poster design, and a change in scale of elements within the design would all have helped to show control of media and move the submission into the Merit grade range.

In addition to this, less repetition of the designs for the CDs (perhaps using some of the other source material) would have provided opportunities to show better decision-making in terms of moving the body of work forward. Clearer differentiation between the scale of concepts and developments would have enhanced the reading of the candidate’s selection process to show systematic development.

Student 3

This programme combined representations of landscape and still life with pattern and text, primarily from Māori and Pacific Island contexts. Within this structure, students were given opportunities to work with a range of media within drawing, painting and printmaking. Some folios within the verification sample included a mix of representational and text elements along with pattern, while others were almost exclusively pattern-based, suggesting that students were able to identify and work to their technical strengths.

Graphite drawings of pattern and an object were used to present the folio’s proposition and provide a starting point of visual material from which to develop. In subsequent works, a landscape element was introduced, providing further options for exploration. A clear structure for development is evident, but students were given room to reflect on their previous works and make decisions about the most successful direction to take their body of work.

This folio sits at the bottom end of the Merit grade range. Grid devices used throughout the submission show an understating of whakairo. Control is evident in the pattern-based pencil drawing, which is further investigated successfully in wet media throughout the submission, and there is a very confident combination of line work with textural surface.

The investigation of pattern and negative space seen initially in the maunga painting at the top right of panel one is revisited and repeated successfully in several paintings. However, this understanding of the relationships between elements within the works is not utilised in the larger works on panel two, preventing the submission from being placed higher in the Merit range.

Student 4

This programme provided students with a rich combination of opportunities for learning across drawing, photography, collage, painting and printmaking, with the development of work in painting. Appropriate established practice is reference implicitly and explicitly. The range of media explorations presented on the top half of the first panel represent a significant amount and diversity of learning. Portraits and representations of cultural identity provide easily accessible imagery for the investigation.

Collage is used to transition from the more conventional representations of form and space to the much more complex and layered compositions that make up the latter part of the first and all of the second panels. Most submissions in the verification sample for this school showed a good understanding of the conventions of contemporary collage.

This submission is placed at the top of the Merit grade range. Fluency with media is evident in some works, but this is not consistent, particularly on the second panel. There is evidence of systematic development of ideas, but it appears that the candidate has not reflected on their most successful works from the first panel as they moved on to the second: the works on the top of the second panel seem only loosely related to the development that has happened up to that point, and which continues in the final work of the submission. The candidate might have benefited from using the final work (or works) to demonstrate their illustrative skills, which are strong on the first panel.

Student 5

This is a tightly structured programme, with some content and much of the layout specified. However, each student has been able to find their own approach and show a sense of ownership of the end result. The learning journey takes students through a range of established practice that will be familiar to teachers with long experience but has been less frequently seen at Level 1 in recent years. Artists referenced include John Bevan Ford, Marian Maguire, Lonnie Hutchinson, Philippa Blair, Nigel Brown and Dick Frizzell.

A range of media is explored, across fields including drawing, printmaking, painting and sculpture. The grid paintings and silhouette / sculptural compositions explore methods for combining subject matter in multiple ways. The sculptural forms are displayed appropriately for the folio submission, either photographed with dimensions indicated, or folded to sit snugly against the board.

The example presented here is placed at the bottom end of the Excellence grade range. The first panel presents an assortment of “kiwiana” subject matter, handled with fluency in a range of media. The candidate competently uses appropriate established practice to help drive the work forward and refine their ideas. The second sculptural form reflects consideration of grid, line and texture informed by specific elements from panel one.

The print at the bottom of the first panel clearly demonstrates fluency of media and communicates an extension of visual ideas. However, to be placed higher in the Excellence grade range, this fluency with media would need to be demonstrated consistently in the painted works on the folio as well.